When was the last time you saw a toddler throwing a temper tantrum in the checkout line at a grocery store, at a sit-down restaurant or on an airplane? How did you react? Perhaps you rolled your eyes, smug in the knowledge that your future children would never behave like that. Maybe you muttered something under your breath like, “Control your kid, lady.” Or maybe you could relate — you’re a kid-meltdown veteran, after all — and so offered the parent a sympathetic smile.

A couple months ago, a post went viral on The Matt Walsh Blog titled: Dear parents, you need to control your kids. Sincerely, non-parents. The gist of it was that we, as observers of a tantrum in a public space, don’t know the history of the mother and her kid, and are therefore in no position to judge. Perhaps mom is teaching the child a lesson — no Lucky Charms for you! — and a crying fit is the outcome. Perhaps the kid doesn’t want to be running errands with mom. Or maybe the child is just having a bad day.

The fact is that children, being children, sometimes lose control and behave badly in public. The issue is whether something should be “done” to protect other users of grocery stores — or restaurants, or airplanes — from having to witness these spectacles.

Many airlines are debating whether to ban children under 12 from first class or introduce “no-kids zones” such as child-free rows on flights. Some restaurants in the United States will not serve children under the age of 12; other eating establishments don’t explicitly say “no toddlers” but instead simply fail to provide wee-diner necessities, such as high chairs. Hotels and resorts are doing it too, by promoting child-free floors or calling themselves adults-only. Is this growing trend a sign of a burgeoning anti-child culture, or a “last straw” attempt to deal with misbehaving miscreants by banning them?

Businesses that choose to go kid-free aren’t doing it because they hate children, she says; rather, they’re sending a message to the parents of misbehaving children: For the sake of our other customers, we don’t want to risk that you haven’t taught your child manners.

“Society is making the parenting decision for you — please don’t bring your child here,” says Freedman Smith. She also sees the trend as a backlash against modern parents who drag their kids everywhere instead of hiring a babysitter. Some public spaces are just not suitable for children.

“There are spaces in which we expect to see children — circuses, playgrounds, zoos, Boston Pizza. If the high chairs are there, or there’s a playground in the restaurant, that’s a pretty big clue kids are welcome,” she says. There are other spaces, though, where the tone is subdued or hushed, such as the symphony, art gallery or a white-tablecloth restaurant; at these venues there’s an “expectation for behaviour.”

“If your child is not ready to be there yet, don’t take them,” says Freedman Smith, who has marched her own two children out of Tim Hortons for misbehaving. “Make a parenting decision.”

Liz Tompkins agrees. A mother of two, Tompkins remembers getting dirty looks from another woman at the Talisman Centre when she would bring her eldest son, then aged three or four, into the women’s change room. What irked Tompkins was that her son wasn’t bothering anyone.

“He would sit on the bench and behave himself, or maybe play with a locker door. What else was I supposed to do with him? It’s not like he could wait for me outside,” Tompkins recalls. She couldn’t understand the stranger’s irritation. Now that her boys have grown into teenagers, she understands that some public places — fancy restaurants, for example (not locker-rooms) — are better suited for adults.

“If I’m in a restaurant and I’m trying to have a nice meal, and there’s a kid at another table that keeps (crying and) going on and on and on, the parents should pack up and go home,” she says.

Tompkins recounts a recent evening out at the movies where a four-year-old girl kept bouncing up and down in her seat — no doubt the preschooler was bored by all the swearing and sex scenes. “My friend and I talked loudly among ourselves for the parents’ benefit,” says Tompkins. “They should have hired a babysitter.”

Though Rebecca Sullivan agrees that specifying “no kids” is appropriate when there will be content unsuitable for their age — hence movie ratings — the University of Calgary professor says businesses are walking a slippery slope when they begin banning children, not for their own safety, but for the comfort of others.

“I think this creates a really problematic society,” says Sullivan, director of the Institute for Gender Research at the University of Calgary.

“We encounter an attitude that sees family and children as interfering with public life, and that public life and domestic life should remain in separate spheres. So, how dare you bring your children to a restaurant? How dare you bring your children to business class? How dare you bring your child into a hotel?”

She calls this labelling of undesirables — in this case, kids — as “identity marketing,” and says businesses that brand themselves as un-kid-friendly are more or less sanctioning intolerance, in those settings, against noisy wee ones and, by proxy, their caregivers (usually moms).

“It’s the idea that we have decided that it’s inappropriate and unacceptable for children to be children in public spaces,” says Sullivan.

“When we start these kinds of identity marketing — you get to stay in a kid-free zone — well, should we be encouraging people in looking at children as a problem?”

Rachel Molcak says no. When her son Zakary was six months old she experienced this attitude on a flight between Toronto and Calgary. The woman seated in the aisle seat on her row started complaining to her husband — who was seated across the aisle with another mom and baby — about their seats, and she then placed her purse on the middle seat. When Zakary fell asleep after takeoff, Molcak asked the lady if she would move her purse so Molcak could lay her baby down.

“She said, ‘No, did you pay for this seat?’ ” Molcak explained the airline policy; that the carrier blocks off the seat next to a baby-on-lap passenger unless the airplane is full.

“She was about to move her purse when the stewardess stepped in and said, ‘Ma’am, you do not have to move your purse — she has no right to that seat,’ ” says the Calgary mom.

The airline then brought the woman a complimentary glass of wine, as if to say, “We’re so sorry this happened to you.” What further galls Molcak is that Zakary was a perfect angel — he slept the entire flight. How to explain this anti-baby and anti-mom behaviour from two different women on the same flight?

“I think either they have never had children, or they feel like they’re entitled to public spaces being certain way. Like ... they deserve to shop at a grocery store without a child tantruming,” says Molcak.

Could kid-free grocery stores be next (or, at the very least, kid-free aisles)? It’s not likely, says Sullivan.

“We don’t want family dynamics intruding only in certain public spaces,” like fancy restaurants, says Sullivan. “A grocery store is in the domain of mommies.”

Lisa Kadane is a Calgary-based features writer. Follow her on Twitter:@LisaKadane, or read about her parenting adventures at www.drink-play-love.com.

Comments

We encourage all readers to share their views on our articles and blog posts. We are committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion, so we ask you to avoid personal attacks, and please keep your comments relevant and respectful. If you encounter a comment that is abusive, click the "X" in the upper right corner of the comment box to report spam or abuse. We are using Facebook commenting. Visit our FAQ page for more information.